


Holly On Her Own

by thebearsays



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 17:56:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 5,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8219902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebearsays/pseuds/thebearsays
Summary: Holly knows Stanley is bad news, but Mama won't listen and keeps going back to him. But when he turns his wrath on Holly herself, Mama finally kicks him out. But will he stay gone?





	1. Chapter 1

_A/N: ‘Holly’ was written back in my college days, and is the original incarnation for Sherry, Erin’s friend from ‘Lurch’s Girl’. As some readers of that story may note, various turns of phrase have survived, but in the end Holly’s and Sherry’s fates were somewhat different._

_So here’s Holly...She’s not Sherry, but without her there’d be no Sherry._

Prologue

The girl is fifteen, barefoot and cold in a faded yellow dress, careful not to step on the shards of glass glittering up at her from the rain-wet sidewalk, her tousled blonde hair damp and in her eyes. Two young black men in a battered green Buick stare at her as she passes, and one of them calls out to her.

“Hey, baby, how ’bout a blow job for a couple horny niggers?”

She smiles and blows a kiss back over her shoulder. “Guys better watch out, or else Fat Leo’s gonna eat you!” Fat Leo is a legend in Uptown, a Chinese wino who is said to live under the el tracks and eat kittens. She used to believe the stories herself, when she was little, but not anymore.

In front of the China Star Restaurant she starts to skip, and right away something stabs the bottom of her left foot, sharp enough to bring tears.

“Damnit--” She pulls a sliver of brown-tinted glass from her foot and throws it down in disgust.

_Stupid, you weren’t paying attention._

For a while then she just stands there, the smell of food from the restaurant making her hungry, and when the Buick pulls from the curb she watches it until it slows at Broadway and turns right. She leaves the sanctuary of the China Star doorway, waits for no traffic, and runs across Bryn Mawr toward her own street.

Chapter 1

Her name is Holly Spencer, and she lives with her mother on the second floor of a brick two-flat on Winthrop. The hallway is dark as she climbs the rotted stairs, trying not to breathe because of the dead rats under the stairway.

Once she’d heard Mama argue with Mr. Jarrett about the smell, and about the winos who liked to urinate in the hall, but Mr. Jarrett hadn’t said anything, he’d simply shrugged and put the rent money in his pocket.

Now she enters their apartment and stops when she sees the man sitting at the table with Mama, a man in a torn t-shirt who grins when he sees her. Ash falls from his cigarette onto his shirt, leaving a gray smear after he brushes it off.

“You remember Stanley, don’t you, Holly?” Mama asks, ust like that, like none of the bad things before ever happened, and Holly looks at her with sudden tears in her eyes.

“Yeah, Mama, I remember,” she says, her fingers curled tight at her sides, acutely aware of her body under the yellow dress, the light brush of fabric against her nipples. “Better’n you, even.”

“I remember you too,” Stanley says, leaning back in his chair and scratching his gut. “You was always real pretty, just like your ma.”

She wants to cry out, to scream at Mama for bringing him back. _Mama, how could you forget, you know how he is when he’s drunk. Damnit, you_ know.


	2. Chapter 2

** Chapter 2 **

**Alabama on the radio, hillbilly and loud, and Mama at the table shaping hamburger.**

**“It ain’t right, Mama, you know it ain’t, the things you let him do just so he gives you money, the things he does when you ain’t here--” She stops, too late, and Mama glances up from her ground beef.**

**“What things?”**

**Holly shakes her head. _You wouldn’t believe me, Mama, or you’d call me a tease for paradin’ around without a bra._**

**“It’s just stupid,” she says, her voice quiet now. She goes to the door and looks back, angry and uncertain, but Mama has turned away.**

**Holly runs from the apartment, Mama’s music in her ears, almost losing her balance on the stairs where they curve and get narrow. Then she is on the street in the sunlight, running, and Mama’s voice stops her.**

**“Ain’t rght, neither, for a little girl t’ sass her mother, ‘specially about that what ain’t her concern!”**

**Holly hesitates, calling Mama _bitch_ in her mind, Mama so high-an’-mighty up there in the window, curlers in her hair and a cigarette in her mouth.**

**“Never mind, Mama,” she says softly, the pavement warm against her bare feet as she runs toward Bryn Mawr.**


	3. Chapter 3

** Chapter 3 **

**A wet, muggy breeze billows the curtain of the open window, ruffling Holly’s hair as she lies tense and rigid on the cot, her body slick with sweat. Her room is dark, illuminated occasionally by lightning and by the softly-glowing numbers of her alarm clock, which read 4:37.**

**The cry of a baby comes from the downstairs apartment, sad and mournful and lonely. She shivers, her fear like a live thing gnawing at the pit of her stomach.**

**_You shouldn’t have told,_ a small voice whispers in her mind, _you shouldn’t have told and now he’s going to hurt you._**

**But she _had_ told, had gone right into the bar where his friends were and told them everything. They laughed as she stood there in her cropped t-shirt and frayed cut-offs, laughed and told her it couldn’t be true.**

**_Can’t be talkin’ ‘bout Stan, they said, ‘cause Stan ain’t that kinda guy. C’mon up here on my lap, honey, one of them said, an’ tell us all about it._ **

**Holly rolls over on her stomach now and buries her face in the pillow, clutching it tightly as the baby wails again from downstairs. Then, in spite of her fear, her eyes close and she sleeps.**


	4. Chapter 4

** Chapter 4 **

**Stanley is there when she comes awake, like a shadow in the dark, close enough for her to smell him, whiskey and onions and sweat.**

**“Pretty little bitch,” he whispers, on his knees by the cot, his breath hot on her face. She feels his fingers on her neck, then lower, inside the old flannel shirt she likes to sleep in. He pinches one of her nipples, and she bites her lip to keep from crying out.**

**“Pretty,” he whispers again, whiskey and onions as he covers her mouth with his and kisses her hard. He unbuttons her shirt and slides his hand over her breasts and down across her stomach, and she squirms under his touch.**

**Then he stops, and Holly hears the floorboards creak as he stands up.**

**“Heard you taken a walk down t’ Al’s today, taken a walk in the fuckin’ rain an’ told them boys some stories.”**

**“They wasn’t stories,” she says defiantly, even as Stanley tangles his fingers in her long hair and pulls her half off the cot.**

**“This’ll learn you,” he says, slapping her backhanded across the face, then again and again until she goes limp in his grasp.**

**“Next time I’ll do you like I done your mama that time,” he says, breathing hard and finally letting go of her hair. She slumps down onto the cot, her mouth coppery with the taste of blood, and hears the apartment door slam as he goes out.**


	5. Chapter 5

** Chapter 5 **

**Holly takes the knife from under her cot, her insides like ice, and brings it up between her breasts.**

**_Mama won’t care if I’m dead._ **

**_No,_ ** **her mind-voice pleads, _you know she loves you._**

**_Then why won’t she listen when I try to tell her?_ **

**_She doesn’t want to hear—she loves you, but she loves him, too._ **

**_Yeah, she loves him more._ **

**She tightens her grip around the handle of her knife, feels the blade razor-sharp and cold against her skin, and closes her eyes.**

**“No, Mama,” she whispers, “I won’t, but it would be so easy, wouldn’t it, like I bet it was for Daddy down home in that motel.”**

**Still holding the knife, Holly goes to the window and looks out, down at the street where a mangy German Shepherd sniffs for food in the first gray light of dawn.**

****

****


	6. Chapter 6

** Chapter 6 **

**The next night Holly lies awake in the darkness, listening to them fight, worried sick because this time Mama isn’t backing down.**

**From the kitchen, Stanley’s voice is loud and angry.**

**“You? Kicking _me_ out? Whatever that little slut told you, she’s lying!”**

**And now Mama replies, in her calm but no-nonsense way, “I believe her, and that’s what matters. An’ besides, I heard you slapping her, an’ I seen her bruises my ownself.” She pauses, her voice showing anger of her own now. “I’ve taken a lot from you, Stanley Dunn, but I will not see you abuse my daughter, y’hear? Now get your filthy gear an’ get out!”**

**_He won’t go, Mama. You waited too long and now it’s too late._ **

**Holly slips off the cot and takes the knife from under her pillow, then heads for the kitchen. She moves swiftly, her bare feet making no sound on the hardwood floor in the hall, but when she hears the first blow and Mama’s cry of pain, she hopes she isn’t too late herself.**

**She rushes into the kitchen,  where Stanley has Mama down on the floor while he beats her viciously with his fists.**

**“Leave her alone!”**

**Stanley looks up at her and laughs. “Mind your business, girl, ‘less you want me to whup _your_ pretty little ass, too.”**

**“You already did that.”**

**His eyes widen as Holly pulls the knife from under her flannel shirt and glares at him through her hair.**

**“You get or I’ll stick you,” she says, her hand steady and her voice cold.**

**Stanley gets to his feet, eyeing the knife warily. “Like hell,” he says. lunging at her, but she steps back and slashes the knife across his right palm.**

**“I said get!”**

**He stares at his bleeding hand, then at her, his eyes boring into hers. “Okay, little girl, I’m gettin’, but y’all keep that knife handy case I ever come back, y’hear?”**

**Then he’s gone, leaving Holly free to tend to Mama and her wounds.**


	7. Chapter 7

** Chapter 7 **

**“Mama, I’m home,” Holly calls out, but there is no answer, no sound at all in the apartment as she kicks off her sandals and clears a spot on the table for her books. Mama’s coffee mug is there, still half-full. She lifts the mug to her nose and smiles at the aroma - Maxwell House Instant spiked with Southern Comfort - before impulsively downing what’s left and making a face.**

**_Yuck, she let it get cold._ **

**“Mama, no fair celebratin’ all by your lonesome,” Holly calls out, but again there is no reply.**

**She pushes aside the curtain separating the kitchen from the living room, then stifles a scream at the scene before her.**

**Mama lies sprawled on the unmade sofa-bed, all cut up and naked, with one arm twisted horribly beneath her and her sightless eyes staring at nothing.**

**Holly falls to her knees next to the sofa-bed and takes one of Mama’s hands in hers.**

**“You’re so cold, Mama,” she whispers, her eyes wet with tears, and in her mind she sees how it will be when they take Mama away, the sheet will be up over her head and soaked with blood.   .**


	8. Chapter 8

** Chapter 8 **

**Down home in Tennessee, two days before Mama’s funeral, Holly comes into her Aunt Betsy’s kitchen for a bottle of Pepsi, her face tear-streaked and dirty. Two long-haired old men – Mama’s uncles – are at the table, the ice already melted in their gin-and-tonics.**

**“Yeah, Earl,” one of them says as she sits down with her soda, “issa funny thing what this town kin do to some folks, like it makes ‘em crazy to grow up here, an’ nothin’ good ever happens to any of ‘em.”**

**“That’s fool talk, Pete, an’ nothin’ I ain’t already heard.” Earl pauses to sip his drink and then wipes his mouth with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “But since you got a bug up your ass again, I guess I gotta hear it one more time.”**

**Pete shakes his head. ”Fool talk, hell. I’m tellin’ you, this place makes folks strange. ’Member Allan Ray Dixx, ever’one said he’d go to college for sure?”**

**“What about him?”**

**“He never went. Boy’s been livin’ off his ma nigh onto fifteen years now, don’t do nothin’ ‘cept watch T.V. alla time, or get drunk with his buddies.”**

**“I had a cousin like that once,” Holly offers, “but he’s in prison now.”**

**Then she blushes, ‘cause for all she knows her jailbird cousin might be a son to one of these guys.**

**They pay her no mind.**

**“Maybe Allan Ray’s one of them late bloomers or somethin’,” Earl says, “like that gent who won the lottery when he was sixty-four.” He pulls a gray handkerchief out of his shirt pocket, blows his nose in it, and shoves it back into his pocket.**

**“Thought you was gonna use your shirt for that, too,” Pete mutters, a look of sour disgust on his face. “I swear, any goddamn fool kin look at you an’ see I’m right.”**

**“Y’all play nice,” Holly says, getting up from the table and carrying her now-empty Pepsi bottle to the sink in order to rinse it.**

**Pete looks over at her as she holds the bottle under the slowly-running tap.**

**“You’re Alma’s little girl, ain’t you?”**

**“Yeah,” she says, “‘cept I ain’t little no more.”**

**“Issa real shame, what happened to Alma,” Pete mutters, staring into his drink.**

**“Yeah,” Earl agrees. “You gotta wonder, though, why she stayed with that Stanley feller so long like she done.”**

**Cold water bubbles from the neck of the bottle and runs down over her hand, and Holly squeezes her eyes shut against the tears so they won’t see her cry.**

**_You remember Stanley, don’t you, Holly?_ **

**She turns and looks at them through a veil of hair, two old men in the kitchen where Mama grew up, hating them and wishing they would just go off somewhere and leave her the hell alone.**

**_Oh, Mama, how come you let him do that to you, huh? And how come you never remembered your ownself?_ **

**“It was dumb,” she tells them now, “so fuckin’dumb ‘cause Stanley was trash, he didn’t care about her at all--”**

**Choking on a sob, she flees out into the back yard, letting the screen door whack hard against its frame as she goes.**

**Out past the yard is a small patch of woods, and Holly wanders that way, accompanied by an old hound named Mose who lopes along beside her.**

**They walk a long way, coming at last to a small creek deep in that patch of woods.**

**She stands on the bank, liking the breeze in her hair and the feel of mud between her naked toes, and she wonders if her mother ever came here as a girl.**

**“I bet Mama went skinny-dipping here,” Holly confides to Mose, who looks at her with his sad brown eyes and yawns.**

**“Be that way,” she mutters, marveling at this place where Msma’d likely spent much of her girlhood.**

**_I’m here, Mama,_ she thinks, feeling her mother’s presence all around her.**

**Holly looks down at Mose, who looks solemnly back up at her.**

**“No peekin’, y’hear?” she warns him, then peels off her tight shorts and cropped tank top and throws herself into the cold, inviting water of the creek.**

**And Mose not only peeks, he splashes in after her.**


	9. Chapter 9

** Chapter 9 **

**Betsy Anders comes into her kitchen to find Pete and Earl still at the table but no trace of Holly.**

**“Where’s my niece? I thought she was in here with you all.”**

**“She was,” Earl says, “‘til she had some harsh words for Alma an’ ran off cryin’.”**

**Pete corrects him. “Them harsh eords were mostly for Stanley, I reckon, ‘cept for when she called her mama dumb for bein’ with him.”**

**“Fuckin’ dumb,” Earl adds helpfully.**

**Betsy arches her brows. “Holly said that?”**

**Both men nod.**

**“Well, damn,” Betsy says with a grin. “I think maybe her an’ me will get along just fine.”**

**At that moment the screen door bangs open to admit one very wet girl and one very wet dog, both of them panting and tracking mud on her floor.**

**But the look of pure joy on her niece’s face stops Betsy from scolding.**

**“I see Mose showed you the creek,” she says dryly.**

**“Found it my ownself,” Holly says proudly, and Betsy wonders if the girl is aware of how nymph-like she looks, with all that blonde hair plastered to her face and her skimpy top plastered to her skin.**

**“You look like your Mama used to,” she says softly. “She looked good wet, too.”**

**Holly blushes, glancing down at the way her wet top has become almost see-through.**

**“Mama’s tits were bigger,” she says, and goes to the fridge for another Pepsi.**


	10. Chapter 10

** Chapter 10 **

**_Later that evening._ **

**Holly, now wearing one of Mama’s old nightgowns, comes into the kitchen for a pop. As she heads for the fridge, Aunt Betsy looks up from her conversation with Pete and Earl.**

**“Good, you’re still up. I was about to come fetch you.”**

**Noting their serious expressions, Holly grins. “Whatever y’all think I did, it wasn’t really me. It was Mose.”**

**Hearing his name, the dog pads over to Holly, and by way of greeting buries his muzzle in the general vicinity of her crotch.**

**_Well, damn._ **

**Shocked silence all around as the others watch to see how she’ll react.**

**“Does this mean we’re goin’ steady,” she asks Mose, gently pushing him away, “or are you that _nosy_ with all the girls?”**

**This gets Aunt Betsy _and_ her uncles laughing like mad, which Holly figures is an improvement. She gets her Pepsi from the fridge and joins them at the table.**

**“So what’s up, Aunty?” she asks, once her aunt has more or less composed herself.**

**“Oh, God...Nosy...That was classic.” Betsy takes a sip of her coffee and turns serious. “Okay, first off, do you got a decent dress for the burial?”**

**“No, ma’am, just that ragged old yellow one I wore on the Greyhound.” She shrugs. “Figured I’d make do with my jean skirt and a blouse.”**

**Her aunt shakes her head. “No, we’ll buy you one in Blaine tomorrow. And don’t hit me, but maybe some shoes, too.” She grins. “‘Less you were plannin’ to go barefooted.”**

**Holly feels tears of shame burning behind her eyes.**

**“Aunty, I don’t have much money.”**

**Betsy waves that off. “Ain’t askin’ for any.”**

**Holly sniffles and wipes at her eyes. “Well then, I thank you for bein’ so nice to me.”**

**Betsy smiles. “You’re welcome. And now that we got that settled, I got a tougher question for you.”**

**Holly amiles back. “Okay.”**

**Her aunt sighs. “Honey, I know this is a bad time for decisions an’ such, but we – your uncles and me – been wonderin’ what your plans are once the funeral’s over and done with.”**

**Holly shrugs. “Haven’t thought about it much.”**

**_Holly Jolene Spencer, you are a damn liar._ **

**“Were you thinkin’ of goin’ back to Chicago?”**

**“No, ma’am.” And then she says it, what she’s known in her heart almost since she stepped off the damn bus in Knoxville. “I belong here, where Mama was.”**

**A look passes between them, then Aunt Betsy is on her feet with her srms outstretched.**

**“Oh honey, you sure do.”**

**And Holly goes to her, mourning not only Mama, but what Mama stole from her by leaving this place.**


	11. Chapter 11

** Chapter 11 **

**“Aunty, I finally found a dress I like,” Holly calls out from the dressing room of a Sears in Knoxville. “And matching sandals, too.”**

**The _second_ Sears in Knoxville they’ve been to, not to mention however-many other shops – first in Blaine, then here - Holly has left trashed in her wake just to buy _one_ measly dress.**

**“God help me when she needs clothes for school,” Betsy mutters, then aloud to Holly she says, “Well, come on out and lemme have a look at you.”**

**The sudden silence from the dressing room makes her nervous.**

**“Holly, you okay in there?”**

**“I’m fine. But I’m thinkin’ you should be sitting down when I come out, and you gotta promise not to yell at me.”**

**“I promise,” she says, then almost falls off the chair she’s on when Holly makes her appearance.**

**The dress is a short – _very_ short - shimmery green thing with flimsy spaghetti straps and a revealing neckline.**

**_Oh.my.Lord._ **

**Betsy opens her mouth, fully intending to break the promise she’d just made, but what comes out instead is, “I can so see Alms wearting that when she was younger.”**

**“But not you? You’re younger than Mama was.”**

**Betsy laughs. “Honey, I’m still twice _your_ age, and that ship sailed when I dropped my first rugrat.”**

**“You have kids?” Holly asks in surprise.**

**“Three girls a mite younger’n you.”**

**“Where are they?”**

**“With their daddy for the summer.You’ll meet ‘em when school starts.”**

**“Oh, man,” Holly whispers, and Betsy is surprised to see tears shining in her eyes.**

**“What’s wrong,sweetheart? Did I say somethin’ wrong?”**

**“No! It’s just...I’ve always wanted a little sister, an’ now it’s like I’ll have three of ‘em.”**

**“They’ll adore you,” Betsy tells her, near tears herself, and gets stiffly to her feet. “Now let’s get this stuff paid for and the food court. I’m starved.”**

**“Yeah, me too. And Aunty?”**

**“Yes, honey?”**

**“Thank you for buyin’ me a dress, and letting me keep this one, and for understanding about Mama.”**

**“Put it this way,” Betsy says with a grin. “When she was your age, my sister scandalized half the town. And honey, I can’t wait to see you scandalize the other half.”**


	12. Chapter 12

** Chapter 12 **

**Holly looks down at Mama’s coffin, at Mama so fixed-up and pretty now in her favorite dress, the blue one with the small rip under one arm. She reaches out briefly to touch Mama’s face.**

**“Rest peaceful, Mama,” she says, and turns away. As she heads for the foyer where Aunt Betsy waits, a girl of about thirteen, who she recognizes as one of her Tucker cousins from Richland Creek, stops her.**

**“I wish my mama’d let me wear a dress like that,” she says, and Holly gives her a cold stare.**

**“I wish my mama _could_.”**

**The girl’s eyes widen as her hand flies to her mouth.**

**“Oh, God! I’m sorry, okay? Sometimes I’m just stupid.”**

**Her cousin looks so miserable that Holly’s anger vanishes as quickly as it came.**

**“Hey, you an’ me both,” she says, then smiles. “I’m Holly.”**

**“I’m Tanya Jo.”**

**Holly arches a brow. “Tanya Jo _Tucker_?”**

**“The one one an’ only,” Tanya Jo replies with a flip of her brown hair. Then she grins. “So long as I stay outta Nashville, anyway.”**

**They laugh, and now Aunt Betsy appears next to them.**

**“Ah, I see you an’ Tanya Jo have met,” she tells Holly. “Y’all should hit it off like two peas in a pod.”**

**“A really _stupid_ pod,” Tanya Jo says, winking at Holly.**

**“I won’t ask,” Betsy mutters. “Tanya Jo, you’re welcome to ride to the cemetery with us, if your folks don’t mind.”**

**“They don’t,” Tanya Jo assures her. “An’ I’d be happy to ride with you.”**

**“Good deal,” Betsy says. “Y’all meet me at the car in five minutes.” She turns and heads for the parking lot.**

**Tanya Jo and Holly regard each other shyly, and finally the younger girl says, “I’m glad you ain’t leavin’ us to go back north.”**

**“Me too. And I’m glad you’ll be at the cemetery with me.”**

**“I want to,” Tanya Jo says simply, grasping Holly’s hand and giving it a quick squeeze. Her face brightens. “Hey, maybe afterwards you could hang out at my house, I’ll show you my new rifle.”**

**Holly’s brows go way up. “You have a rifle?”**

**“Well, sure.” Tanya Jo grins at her city-girl cousin’s obvious surprise. “‘Round here most folks do.”**

**Holly thinks on that, her eyes glittering darkly.**

**“I want you to teach me.”**

**“Okay,” Tanya Jo replies, wondering a bit at that sudden gleam in Holly’s eyes. “You fixin’ to shoot tin cans or critters?”**

**“Don’t matter right now. I just need to be ready.”**

**“Ready why?”**

**“‘Cause ‘fore I left Chicago I made a promise, an’ one day when I’m grown I aim to keep it.”**

**Tanya Jo looks at her cousin, then at Aunt Alma dead in her coffin, and her fists clench.**

**“When you go I’m going with you.”**

**Their eyes meet, fierce green staring into fierce blue, and in that moment they become more than simply friends, or cousins, or whatever each on her own might have been.**

**They become kin.**


	13. Chapter 13

** Chapter 13 **

**Al Barnick figures maybe he was wrong about the girl.**

**She’s been in twice now, maybe a couple weeks apart, the second time just three days ago. She’d been lugging a suitcase and wearing a short yellow dress that showed more of her than it covered.**

**She’d handed him a sealed white envelope with Stan’s name on the front.**

**“Make sure your friend Stanley gets this next time you see him, will you?”**

**“What is it, a goodbye note?” he asked, trying to be funny.**

**“Somethin’ like that,” she said, her green eyes never blinking as she looked at him. And what he saw in those eyes right then made him damn glad the note wasn’t for him.**

**He opens his cash drawer and slips the envelope under the tray, then gestures at the fading bruises on her face.**

**“What happened there?”**

**The girl shrugged. “Y’all did what I asked. Stanley didn’t like it.”**

**Then she turned and walked out.**

**But it’s her first visit that shames him, the way she’d come in out of the rain and faced them, even after they laughed at her and made crude comments.**

**The others had been for not telling Stan at all, but Al had been stupidly loyal and told himself the little brat was lying and deserved a good spanking.**

**So now here he is, alone and guilty in his bar and hoping Stan comes in so he can get that damn note out of his cash drawer.**

**The bar starts to fill up, and just when Al has given up on seeing Stan at all, the door opens and the man walks in.**

**As Stanley perches on a stool Al sets a mug of Old Style in front of him.**

**“Hey, buddy. Haven’t seen you in a while.”**

**Stanley shrugs and takes a swig of his beer. “Been layin’ low.”**

**“I’ll say.” Al pours them each a shot of Jim Beam, his voice casual. “Seen that girl again a few days back.”**

**Stanley pauses with his shot halfway to his lips. “You mean Holly?”**

**“Is that her name?” He downs his own shot and gives Stanley a look. “She looked like someone beat the crap out of her.”**

**“Why tell me?”**

**“‘Cause I find it funny that she got that way right after I told you what she said that time. And,” he adds with some satisfaction, “‘cause she left me a note for you.”**

**Stanley’s mug slams the bar. “The hell you say!” He lowers his voice. “What’d the little bitch want?”**

**Al frowns as he opens the cash drawer. “I haven’t read it, so here, I’ll let you do the honors.”**

**He tosses the envelope on the bar and watches Stanley tear it open and read what the girl had written.**

**Stanley goes pale, then stares at the fresh scar on his palm, and with sudden intuition Al knows who put it there.**

**_Good for you, kid._ **

**“Sonova-fuckin’-bitch,” Stanley mutters, letting the note slip from his fingers as he gets up from the barstool and, without another word, leaves the bar like a man who’s seen a ghost.**

**“What’s with him?” another guy seated at the bar wants to know, but Al just shakes his head and picks up the discarded note.**

**And as he reads the four simple words written there, he starts to grin.**

**_Someday I’ll come huntin’._ **


	14. Chapter 14

** Epilogue **

**_One year later._ **

**The girl is sixteen, barefoot and pretty in a short green dress, careful not to step on any headstones as she crosses the cemetery with her blonde hair longer now, still tousled, and still in her eyes.**

**A blue-tick hound trots along at her side, and when they reach the spot Holly has led them to, the dog lies down and puts his head on his paws, watching her solemnly.**

**“Good dog,” she says, scratching behind his ears. She kneels by the graves, unmindful of getting grass on her bare legs, then places a single red rose on the older one.**

**_Vernon Michael Spencer, who had once pretended to be her father._ **

**_August 2, 1983 – August 2, 2010._ **

**“Hi, Daddy,” she says aloud. “Glad to see you’re still here, where Mama can keep an eye on you.”**

**_And where you can’t ever leave us again._ **

**He’d killed himself on his 27 th. birthday, leaving behind a young widow and a devastated 10-year-old daughter who has never quite forgiven him.**

**And now, having paid Vern as much mind as he ever paid her, Holly turns to the fresher grave, and on that one she places a bouquet of wildflowers.**

**_Alma Joy Anders, January 21, 1984 – July 20, 2016._ **

**_Mama, who worked hard all her life but couldn’t find a decent man to save her life._ **

**“Literally,” Holly informs Mose, who yawns at her. She has almost convinced herself that yawning is his way of agreeing with her.**

**She touches the headstone gently and tucks her legs more comfortably beneath her. Then she shoots Mose a disgusted look.**

**_Mama, please forgive my lazy hound. He never listens, and stares at me when I swim naked._ **

**_Just like those rude boys who happened by the creek one time, but never mind._ **

**_You like my dress? It’s way short and Aunt Betsy says I’m shameless ‘cause I never wear a bra, but she says I’m just like you were so I reckon she’ll get over it._ **

**_Oh, and get this, Mama, the uncles seen me wet one time from the creek, an’ Uncle Earl says if I ever enter a wet t-shirt contest he’ll vote for me._ **

**_Aunt Betsy heard him, she says if that ever happens she will shoot the both of us, so I reckon I’ll wait ’til she ain’t payin’ close attention._ **

**_Anyway, gettin’ back to ol’ Mose here, he got Obie Smith’s bitch pregnant and is now a proud papa, not like I’ve ever seen one of_ ** **those _before._**

**_Oh, and by Obie’s bitch I mean his dog, not his wife, who I ain’t never met and who may very well be a real nice lady._ **

**_Mama, I really like it down here, I don’t miss the city at all. I go to high school in Rutledge, I’m a junior now – well, come September, anyways – and someday maybe I’ll go to college, which I know you always wished you did._ **

**_Let’s see, what else...Oh yeah, I got my license, an’ a waitress job in town, an’ my own Winchester rifle. Cousin Tanya Jo taught me to shoot, and most times I hit what I aim at, ‘specially if the rabbits are feeble and slow-witted that day._ **

**_Ha!_ **

**_Never knew it snowed in Tennessee, meanin’ I still gotta wear shoes in wintertime, but one time I tried goin’ barefooted in the stuff just for fun._ **

**_Mama, my poor feet don’t look good blue, and they still haven’t forgiven me._ **

**_Well, Mama, that’s all I got to share with you, so thanks for listenin’. Mose an’ me best be headin’ back to the house._ **

**_I love you._ **

**Holly scowls down at her father’s grave. “An’ you too, I reckon, but don’t be expectin’ a rose every time I come.”**

**She stands, brushes the grass off her, and looks at Mose.**

**“C’mon, lazybones, let’s go home.”**

**And so they do.**

**THE END**


End file.
